The Comic Book Thread

[SpaceBooger]

Ziggy,
Scott Snyder's run on Batman has a hint of horror to it and is one of the best takes on Batman since Frank Miller.

Snyder's "Batman: The Black Mirror" is my favorite newer Batman tale... but under the cowl is not Bruce Wayne it's Dick Grayson. So the confusing aspect of comic is in my recommendation, Batman was lost in time and the original Robin took over for him... but don't let that stop you it is one of the best Batman stories.

The story that Snyder weaves is an increasingly tied together saga of how Gotham corrupts its heroes, formfitting its challenges to the characters that experience them. Though they start separately, the tale of Dick Grayson assimilating to the new villains awaiting him on the streets of Gotham and Gordon's past coming back to haunt him eventually tie together in a crescendo of horrific beauty, playing on the expectations of the reader while expanding the Bat-mythos wide open in both love letter and forward-thinking fashion.

If having some lost in time Bruce Wayne is not cool check out Snyder's run on the New 52 Reboot from about 10 years ago: "Batman: The Court of Owls Saga"

“[Writer Scott Snyder] pulls from the oldest aspects of the Batman myth, combines it with sinister-comic elements from the series’ best period, and gives the whole thing terrific forward-spin by setting up an honest-to-gosh mystery for Batman to solve.” —Entertainment Weekly
If your one who's become a fan of Snyder's work in Batman, such as Scott Snyder's other Bat-book Pre-52 was the Black Mirror, which was a dark, horror-like take with Dick Grayson as Batman...Snyder's take on Bruce Wayne is more suspenseful, action-packed sort of history lesson on Gotham. This makes Court of Owls a very different beast then Black Mirror. So if your one who loved BM, you might quite not be into CoO's as much (though I doubt it. Snyder's work is still solid). And if you're a new reader, this will be a great jumping on point (the other Snyder Bat-book is Gates of Gotham which isn't necessary, but still an interesting read).

Now for Superman, who is my favorite comic hero, it is harder to recommend something. My favorite Superman tale is about 20 years old but it's great: "Superman For All Seasons".

As one of the biggest icons of both DC Comics and comic books in general, Superman is no stranger to great stories. One of his most overlooked, but easily one of his best, is Superman for All Seasons (by Jeph Loeb and the late Tim Sale).
Nothing illustrates this better than Tim Sale's artwork. There's an almost Norman Rockwell quality to how Sale draws Smallville, giving it a true small-town charm. Add in the colors, and everything pops off of the page in a way that invites the reader into the story's world. Clark's large size and standoffish gaze make him seem like a reckless young man at odds with his current circumstances and unsure of his destiny.
Both the writing and beautiful art of Superman for All Seasons are timeless, classic and transcendental in how they carry the essence of the Man of Tomorrow in a somber yet hopeful whisper.

If you are not big on continuity and want more fun, the Elseworlds titles are fun. A great Superman book, with lots of Batman, is "Superman: Red Son" which tells the story of what would have happened if Kal-El would have landed in Russia instead of Kansas.

“With its moral complexity and a graphic hybrid of Soviet Expressionism and Fifties comic book styling, Red Son is a charming and potent work.” —The Guardian
“It is an interesting analysis of the Superman mythos, as well as Superman himself.” —Examiner
“A strong character study.” —PopMatters
Named one of “The 30 Comic Books You Should Have Read” by Empire Magazine.
Named one of “The 20 Best Graphic Novels of the Decade” by Paste Magazine
One of “12 Superman Stories Everyone Absolutely Needs To Read” by Buzzfeed

Another fun Elseworlds book is "Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham" which puts Batman into the H.P. Lovecraft universe.

Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham is a limited series published by DC's Elseworlds and created by Mike Mignola. The story places Batman as a pulp hero adventurer in the 1920s where he battles against H.P. Lovecraft-inspired monsters.

I'm not quite sure what you were looking for but I hope this helps get you started.

[Michi]

If you’re really not sure what you'd be interested in, my suggestion would be to give the Marvel and DC online subscription services a try. Both of those have 7-day free trials and thousands upon thousands of comics, from the 40s-current, you could potentially browse through to figure out what you might like. And if you end up gravitating towards a certain company it's only going to be $7.99 (DC) or $9.99 (Marvel) for an extra month to dig a little deeper, which should be enough time to explore.

As much as I dislike digital, that really is the cheapest option, I think. Depending on the stores near you, tracking down individual issues could not only be a pain, but potentially expensive. And while collected trades are nice, and much more affordable by comparison, those can run from anywhere from $10 for a nice side story like, say, Batman: Year One, to around $175 for an omnibus of collected issues (granted, you can usually find those for half that on Amazon, but you get the idea.). Either way, a subscription is going to give you more bang for your buck, especially if you have no idea what you're looking for. Once you narrow down your interests then you can worry about the nice, pretty books.

As for the time frame to look for, you're probably right in thinking about skipping the earlier era. Those early comics can be really interesting from a historical perspective, but they’re also often really clunky and cheesy, and can just be downright awkward to read (Hi, Racism and Sexism!). Not to mention things like a lack of logic or consistency. Plus, comics didn't really consistently start treading into more modern day storytelling til the mid 1970s. So you’re probably better off skimming everything before that. Anything starting from that point should be fine and dandy, so just find an art style you like and have at it.

Horror comics? I don’t read a lot of Marvel so someone else will have to chime in with that, but on the DC side Alan Moore's Swamp Thing is probably a good bet. For Batman there’s Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on a Serious Earth, which was pretty creepy. There's also the Hellblazer series, Sandman, American Vampire, the older Secrets of Haunted House and Weird Mystery Tales. The Nice House on the Lake was supposed to be good, but I haven't read it yet. There’s also things like Justice Leauge Dark and DCeased, but if you’re not familiar with the various characters you likely won't give a flying flip about those yet. Um... I don’t know. Just things to look into.

Hope that helps a little!

[marurun]

If your local public library has Hoopla, get your comics fix there in digital form. Also, your local library probably has some graphic novels.

[Ziggy]

Thanks for the input, everyone! So much to dive into. I've picked up a couple of things.

Firstly, an old Star Wars collection. I think the former expanded universe is now known as Legends? Anyway, growing up in the 90's, I had an awesome local video rental shop. It was small, but the counter was two glass cases that had whatever was trendy during the 90's. So I bought lots of Pogs, Beanie Babies, trading cards, etc from this place. All of the 90's quintessential collectibles. During the hype of the Special Editions, I saw a Star Wars comic in the glass case one day. I never owned a comic, and I had no idea what it was all about, but I loved the cover. So I bought it. It was Dark Force Rising issue 2.

This was the first comic I ever bought, and I still own the copy that I bought brand new. Lucky that I still own it, because I once saved it from the trash (my father loved to throw things away). And amazingly, it's still in decent condition. But yeah, I had no idea what I was buying. I tried to read it, but it's right in the middle of a story. I didn't understand how comics worked back then. This is part 2 of 6 of the Dark Force Rising series, which is the second series in the so-called "Thrawn Trilogy," which is a comic adaptation of the novels by Timothy Zahn, which seem to be highly regarded.

You can get the entire Thrawn Trilogy in a single book, but I guess it's been out of print for a while? Copies aren't hard to find, and not crazy expensive, but it's available on Kindle for $18.99. So I decided to purchase it, finally being able to make sense of the first comic book I bought so many years ago.




I also picked up a few Batman books in physical form. Year One and The Dark Knight Returns in paperback form. I've heard good things and they were pretty cheap. I also picked up a hardcover of The Killing Joke because it seems to be well praised. It was also pretty cheap (currently $15.80 on Amazon).




Also picked up The Simpsons Futurama Crossover Crisis because I really like Futurama.

Snyder's "Batman: The Black Mirror" is my favorite newer Batman tale. [...] If having some lost in time Bruce Wayne is not cool check out Snyder's run on the New 52 Reboot from about 10 years ago: "Batman: The Court of Owls Saga"

These both look great! Thanks for the suggestions. I've added them to my wish list.

If you’re really not sure what you'd be interested in, my suggestion would be to give the Marvel and DC online subscription services a try. Both of those have 7-day free trials and thousands upon thousands of comics, from the 40s-current, you could potentially browse through to figure out what you might like. And if you end up gravitating towards a certain company it's only going to be $7.99 (DC) or $9.99 (Marvel) for an extra month to dig a little deeper, which should be enough time to explore.

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll have to think about it. I also keep seeing comiXology for Kindle books. Looks like it's Amazon's comic book subscription service, it's $5.99/mo and has stuff from all publishers. I'm not crazy about subscription services for certain things, comics would probably be one of them. It might be a good way to check things out though! Kindle is actually a pretty good way to check things out, since it lets you download a sample.

I've also noticed that with "Prime Reading," there's a number of comics that are freely available on Kindle if you have Amazon Prime. So it looks like I have access to a lot of comics just with Prime.

And now that I'm reading comics on my tablet, it made me realize I had something on Kindle that I completely forgot about! The Real Ghostbusters Omnibus Volume 1. I vaguely remembering getting it.




Which leads me to my next question... What do you guys prefer reading? Physical or digital? If physical, would you rather read individual issues or a collected book? If digital, what are you reading on? Because I have some thoughts on the matter...

I read through nearly half of The Thrawn Trilogy on my 10" Kindle Fire. I have a small e-ink Kindle that I use for actual reading, I got the 10" Fire for other uses. So this is the first time I'm using the 10" for reading, and it's good and bad. The 10" screen is great for comics, almost the size of a real comic. And the screen looks great (I especially like how I don't have to deal with shadows on the page). But it starts to get HEAVY after holding it for a while! When I made it up to issue 2 of Dark Force Rising, I decided to switch to my physical issue. It was a pleasure holding a single issue compared to the weight of the tablet! If anyone here is reading on a digital device, what are you using? Are there any 10+ inch tablets that are super light or something?

For physical books, it kind of dawned on me that single issues may be way more comfortable to read than anything else. The stuff I got so far is not so large, but I've seen some omnibus books that are really freaking thick! They look super uncomfortable to read! Like, you would need to read it at a desk and not in a chair or lying down. Does anyone here have any of these large books? How do you read them?

If your local public library has Hoopla, get your comics fix there in digital form. Also, your local library probably has some graphic novels.

I'll have to look into that.

Do you have any suggestions for graphical novels? The only ones I really know about are ones that were made into movies (Sin City, Scott Pilgrim).

[bmoc]

The Thrawn Trilogy is fantastic. I have a fairly large collection of 90's era Star Wars novels and the Thrawn Trilogy is top tier. There is also a Thrawn Duology from that time period as well. I remember it being alright but not as good as the original trilogy. There are also two recent Thrawn trilogies that I believe are still canon (if that matters to you). I've read the trilogy that started in 2017 and it was pretty good. I haven't read the latest Ascendancy prequel trilogy. Anyway, I'm a big fan of the character and I can't wait to see him live action in the upcoming Ahsoka show.

Do you have any suggestions for graphical novels? The only ones I really know about are ones that were made into movies (Sin City, Scott Pilgrim).

My favorite graphic novel is Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. It also has a movie but like a lot of anime movies, it was done before the manga was complete. The movie is very good but the graphic novel/manga is so much better.

[Michi]

Which leads me to my next question... What do you guys prefer reading? Physical or digital? If physical, would you rather read individual issues or a collected book? If digital, what are you reading on?....

For physical books, it kind of dawned on me that single issues may be way more comfortable to read than anything else. The stuff I got so far is not so large, but I've seen some omnibus books that are really freaking thick! They look super uncomfortable to read! Like, you would need to read it at a desk and not in a chair or lying down. Does anyone here have any of these large books? How do you read them?

Like you, I prefer physical and reading the individual issues. But depending on what stories you're looking for, piecing together a run, especially an older one, could be a very time consuming affair. So sometimes getting a book is just easier. But if you wanted to read a larger run you don't have to get a giant Omnibus. Like, say, you wanted to read the whole New 52 Batman run from 2011-2016. Yes, you could get the two omnibus books at 840+ pages each (jeebus), which would be cheaper than buying the individual issues, but also risk breaking your spine. Or, you could individually buy the 10 paperback (or sometimes hardcover, if you prefer) volumes that make up the same run. Doing something like that would likely be a bit more expensive in the long run, but also much more convenient for casual reading (200pgs vs 900pgs). And some books may have something in-between like Deluxe Editions (350-400pg). So it all kinda depends on what specifically you're looking for.

Batman is kind of lucky, because he's super popular,
and there's a lot of stories involving him that are stand alone, like Killing Joke, Long Halloween and Hush (hint: you should also get those last two). And DC will often piece together certain story-lines from runs, like the more recent Joker War, into one separate book. So you don't have to buy a bunch extra beyond the story you're looking for.

[Ziggy]

Reading Batman Year One right now and I'm hooked!

The Thrawn Trilogy is fantastic. I have a fairly large collection of 90's era Star Wars novels and the Thrawn Trilogy is top tier. There is also a Thrawn Duology from that time period as well. I remember it being alright but not as good as the original trilogy. There are also two recent Thrawn trilogies that I believe are still canon (if that matters to you). I've read the trilogy that started in 2017 and it was pretty good. I haven't read the latest Ascendancy prequel trilogy. Anyway, I'm a big fan of the character and I can't wait to see him live action in the upcoming Ahsoka show.

I wanted to get the Shadows of the Empire omnibus. Have you read that one? I've always had an interest in Shadows, since the N64 game.

Have you ever read the Thrawn trilogy books? From what I've read, the dialog from the comics was ripped straight from the books. However, the comics are really abridged versions of the books (naturally). One review I read said the comics were more like cliff notes of the books LOL. I am enjoying the comics, but I can totally see how it's cut down. I guess there's only so much you can fit into 6 issue comic (although I suppose they could have made each novel into more than 6 issues). Some scenes seem to jump abruptly. But it's still a decent read so far.

I guess I don't really care what's canon and what's not. If anything, Legends would appeal more to me. Especially 90's stuff, it just has that nostalgia factor for me. But I've heard good things about the Darth Vader series.

I'll take any recommendations if you got em. Like, which series are must-reads?

Like you, I prefer physical and reading the individual issues. But depending on what stories you're looking for, piecing together a run, especially an older one, could be a very time consuming affair. So sometimes getting a book is just easier. But if you wanted to read a larger run you don't have to get a giant Omnibus. Like, say, you wanted to read the whole New 52 Batman run from 2011-2016. Yes, you could get the two omnibus books at 840+ pages each (jeebus), which would be cheaper than buying the individual issues, but also risk breaking your spine. Or, you could individually buy the 10 paperback (or sometimes hardcover, if you prefer) volumes that make up the same run. Doing something like that would likely be a bit more expensive in the long run, but also much more convenient for casual reading (200pgs vs 900pgs). And some books may have something in-between like Deluxe Editions (350-400pg). So it all kinda depends on what specifically you're looking for.

Batman is kind of lucky, because he's super popular,
and there's a lot of stories involving him that are stand alone, like Killing Joke, Long Halloween and Hush (hint: you should also get those last two). And DC will often piece together certain story-lines from runs, like the more recent Joker War, into one separate book. So you don't have to buy a bunch extra beyond the story you're looking for.

For now, I'm just grabbing more or less whatever the cheaper option is. Or if the physical isn't much more than digital, then that's what I'd prefer. But I'm sure if I read enough I'll eventually gravitate toward having a preference. As much as I like physical, a tablet has it's benefits. That said, I've yet to get a giant omnibus, so I can only imagine how annoying some of the text book size ones might be. But I'll see.

For individual issues, I don't think I have the patience to try and collect a larger run. But maybe a shorter run, if it isn't expensive. I was about to get the rest of the Dark Force Rising as individual issues, since I only needed 5. But after realizing it was just part two of the Thrawn Trilogy, I decided to get the collected runs instead. But it occurred to me that it might be fun to hop on a run that is current. Maybe I'll get individual issues that way.

I have heard of Long Halloween and Hush, they are absolutely on my radar!

Yes, Batman seems easy to get into price-wise because of how popular the series is. There's lots of collected paperbacks that are in print and cheap.




Anyone have any recommendations for X-men? Like, what would be a good starting point? I never watched the 90's cartoon series, but it was so popular and sort of omnipresent that the visuals are burned into my memory. I'm not sure if the comics at that time tied into the show or anything like that, or if there's a comic adaptation of the 90's show, but I think I'd be into something of that nature.

[bmoc]

I wanted to get the Shadows of the Empire omnibus. Have you read that one? I've always had an interest in Shadows, since the N64 game.

Have you ever read the Thrawn trilogy books? From what I've read, the dialog from the comics was ripped straight from the books. However, the comics are really abridged versions of the books (naturally). One review I read said the comics were more like cliff notes of the books LOL. I am enjoying the comics, but I can totally see how it's cut down. I guess there's only so much you can fit into 6 issue comic (although I suppose they could have made each novel into more than 6 issues). Some scenes seem to jump abruptly. But it's still a decent read so far.

I guess I don't really care what's canon and what's not. If anything, Legends would appeal more to me. Especially 90's stuff, it just has that nostalgia factor for me. But I've heard good things about the Darth Vader series.

I'll take any recommendations if you got em. Like, which series are must-reads?

I don't think I've read any Star Wars comics. I do kind of want to read Shadows of the Empire: Evolution comic as it is a direct sequel. Other Shadows of the Empire media tells the story of the same event from a certain point of view™. The novel focuses on Leia, Lando, Chewie, Luke and Xizor. The comics focus on Boba Fett and the video game focuses on Dash Rendar. There is even a soundtrack to the book and parts of it was used in the game.

My favorites of the old Legends books are:

1. Thrawn Trilogy
2. X-Wing Series (a whopping 10 novels)
3. Jedi Academy trilogy
4. I, Jedi
5. Shadows of the Empire
6. The Han Solo trilogy
7. The Bounty Hunter Wars trilogy

I, Jedi is pretty unique because it is written in first person. It takes place during the events of the Jedi Academy trilogy a features a character from the first 4 X-Wing novels. I like it a lot but just know that you really need to read the first 4 X-Wing books and the Jedi Academy trilogy to get the most out of it. The rest you could read in any order depending on your interests.

The Bounty Hunter Wars trilogy was rendered non-canon when the prequel films came out as they changed Boba Fett's origins. Still a good read though. Just pretend the prequel films didn't happen.

Sorry for going on such a large tangent that is only somewhat related to comic books. I do want to read Dark Empire (comic) at some point because it was referenced in the novels a few times.

[Ziggy]

Ah, sorry, I read your last posts as "comics" instead of "novels". It gets confusing when there's so many Star Wars books and comics that share the same titles.

Yeah, Shadows always seems interesting to me with that multi media approach. I was a big fan of the N64 game, and always wanted to explore that story line more. Things are touched on in the game that I'm sure are explored more in the books and comics.

[marurun]

I would seriously recommend any comics/graphic novels written by Greg Rucka. His opening run on Batwoman is fantastic. For something more real-world, Queen and Country by Oni Press is great. Rucka's Wonder Woman is fantastic. Rucka's own Lazarus comic on Image is very good as well. Get yourself some Greg Rucka.